Soundgarden - MTV Live 'n' Loud 1996

Upon its release on March 8, 1994, Superunknown wasn’t just a highly anticipated album from a critically acclaimed rock band—its multi-platinum success and Grammy wins practically felt predestined. This was Soundgarden’s long overdue turn to come out on top. Though they were the first late-’80s Seattle-scene spawn to sign to a major label, and dutifully embarked upon traditional career-building exercises like opening stadium tours for Guns N' Roses, they would be soundly leapfrogged on the charts by their Emerald City peers in Nirvana and Pearl Jam; by comparison, Soundgarden’s metallic sonatas were seemingly too knotty (and naughty) to inspire the same magnitude of crossover success. Sure, 1991’s Badmotorfinger landed a bare-chested Chris Cornell on the cover of SPIN, and an MTV ban of the allegedly blasphemous “Jesus Christ Pose” video brought the band more attention than if the station had actually aired it, but Soundgarden appeared destined to be the perennial bronze medalists in the Grunger Games.
By early 1994, however, the playing field had changed considerably: Though Pearl Jam were still the most popular rock band in America, they were actively trying to be the least visible one, declaring a moratorium on videos and interviews in an orchestrated (and ultimately successful) campaign to kill their own hype. Nirvana, likewise, were in the midst of a similar retreat, and though their story had yet to reach its tragic conclusion, ominous warning signs were in the air. But as a band that enjoyed a steadier ascent than their flannelled friends—and whose records got progressively better after jumping to a major—Soundgarden didn’t seem so conflicted about success. Their response to the Seattle-scene media storm wasn’t to try to avoid it, but transcend it, and embrace the opportunity to, for a moment, become the biggest band in the land.
Usually, it’s a bad sign when the wild-child frontman of your favorite group cuts his hair and starts wearing shirts. But the clean-cut Cornell that emerged with Superunknown was emblematic of the album’s mission to deliver maximal effect with minimal histrionics. With its despairing worldview, gold-plated production, and CD-stuffing 71-minute running time, Superunknown is a quintessential ’90s artifact. But thanks to its still-formidable high-wire balance of hooks and heft, the album nonetheless represents, some 20 years later, the platonic ideal of what a mainstream hard rock record should be. And even if that’s an ideal to which few contemporary bands aspire (aside from, say, Queens of the Stone Age), Superunknown remains a useful model for any left-of-center artist hoping to achieve accessibility without sacrificing identity.
For Soundgarden, the push toward pop was the result of incremental evolutions rather than a spectacular leap. Where Badmotorfinger introduced flashes of psychedelia and paisley-patterned melody amid Kim Thayil’s pulverizing riffage, on Superunknown, these elements become featured attractions. The once-oblique John Lennon references gave way to unabashed homage—centerpiece power ballad “Black Hole Sun” is pretty much “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” turned upside down and dropped in a heap of soot and coal. That song counts as Superunknown’s most wanton act of subversion—setting its apocalyptic imagery to a tune so pretty, even Paul Anka can dig it—but if that element of surprise has been diluted by two decades of perpetual rock-radio rotation, the album boasts a wealth of less celebrated deep cuts (the queasy psych-folk of “Head Down,” the dread-ridden doom of “4th of July”) that retain a palpable sense of unease.
Even the album’s eternal fist-pump anthems—“The Day I Tried to Live”, “Fell on Black Days”, “My Wave”—are infected with misanthropy and malaise, making Superunknown the rare arena-rock album that makes just as much sense in blacked-out bedroom. (And yet, despite the junkie intimations of its title, “Spoonman” is really just about a man who plays with spoons.) That said, if you don’t hate the world now quite as much as did when you were 18, you may find yourself skipping over the leaden likes of “Mailman” and “Limo Wreck,” while developing a newfound appreciation for how bassist Ben Shepherd’s India-inspired oddity, “Half”, injects a welcome dose of absurdity into the mix.
By fortuitous coincidence, Superunknown hit stores the same day as Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, an album boasting a similarly expansive scope and thematic framework, albeit approached from a drastically different set of influences (’80s new wave, goth, and electro as opposed to ’60s classic rock). The connection between the two albums is strong enough that the two bands toured together in 1994 and—despite some shit-talkin’ in the interim—are reuniting once again this summer for a joint-20th-anniversary jaunt. For casual Soundgarden fans who still own the record, a concert ticket may ultimately be a more efficient way of celebrating Superunknown’s birthday than by shelling out for this reissue (available in two-and five-CD box set iterations), whose bonus material mostly amounts to demos and rehearsal tapes that cast this epic album in a more normalizing light. However, you do develop a greater appreciation for the final product when you hear the ideas that got scrapped along the away or relegated to B-sides, like the dirgey embryonic arrangement of “Fell on Black Days” (a.k.a. “Black Days III”), the free-form ambient stew of “Jerry Garcia’s Finger”, and a club-friendly industrial funk mix of “Spoonman” by Steve Fisk that sounds like a test run for his beat-driven project Pigeonhed.
You also get a glimpse of the band’s future course with a beautifully spare acoustic treatment of “Like Suicide” that points the way to 1996’s more temperate Down on the Upside, the album that effectively triggered Soundgarden’s subsequent 13-year break-up. But then the go-for-broke, peak-conquering triumphalism of Superunknown was itself a harbinger that the writing was on the wall for this band at the time. When Cornell sings, “Alive in the superunknown” on the album’s acid-swirled title track, it’s both a valorous testament to Soundgarden’s last-gang-in-town fortitude and a telling prophecy of the uncertainty to come, with grunge’s early ’90s stranglehold on alt-rock radio soon to be loosened by the emergence of pop-punk, Britpop, electronica, and nu-metal. But amid a musical landscape now splintered into infinite subgenres, Superunknown remains the very definition of no-qualifiers-required rock—a tombstone for a once-dominant aesthetic, perhaps, but also a solid, immovable mass that endures no matter how dramatically its surroundings have changed.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19407-soundgarden-superunknown/

The B-52s - Revolution Earth

Kate Pierson is showing off the Pepto-Bismol pink cabinets in Suite No. 5. The retro furniture fits right in with the rest of the decor at Kate’s Lazy Meadow, the Hudson Valley, New York motel owned by the redhead from the B-52s and her wife Monica Coleman. There are suites dedicated to cowgirl Annie Oakley and Native American hero Sacagawea, and all of the rentals are filled with ’50s-style whimsy and a collection of B-movie VHS tapes with titles like The Incubus and G.I. Executioner. The kitschy getaway brings to mind the B-52s’ classic “Love Shack” video, where the band partied alongside a crowd of revelers—including a young RuPaul—inside of a tiny technicolor cabin. The mountain hideaway suits the 71-year-old’s eccentric onstage style, but her demeanor is more reserved than the loud decor of her motel or her hair (now magenta) lets on. For our interview, she’s dressed like a ski-bunny in black leggings and fur-lined boots, with pages of detailed notes about her favorite songs through the years, which she says took days of research to compile.
More than four decades ago, the B-52s began with a burst of spontaneity. In 1976, Pierson, Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and her older brother Ricky shared a flaming volcano drink at a Chinese restaurant in Athens, Georgia, headed home to jam—and never stopped. The band relied on improvisation from the start, combining the music they all loved—surf rock, Afrobeat, doo-wop—to become a vibrant fount of pure merriment. They’ve endured hardships, including Ricky’s passing from an AIDS-related illness in 1985, financial woes, and Cindy taking a brief sabbatical in the early ’90s, but the B-52s are the rare band that never broke up. In fact, the remaining founding members continue to play to sold-out crowds across the world.
Now the band is looking to celebrate their history with a documentary, a book, and a jukebox musical, all of which are in the early stages of development. This reminiscing has made Pierson excited to think about the band’s legacy. “The basic message we put out is inclusion,” she says, noting that people tell her all the time that the B-52s got them through high school or an illness. It’s the kind of music that makes a person feel less alone. “They can forget their troubles and they can dance,” she says. “That’s the greatest thing you can give someone.” Here, Pierson looks back at the music that served a similar purpose for her throughout her life.

Les Paul and Mary Ford: “Mockin’ Bird Hill”

Kate Pierson: My grandmother owned the house we lived in in Weehawken, New Jersey. She lived upstairs, and as soon as I woke up I would go up there, and she’d play the piano. She sang this song, “Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee, it gives me a thrill.” I don’t remember much from when I was 5, but I specifically remember her playing that. It’s almost like a vision of her, angelic, playing “Mockin’ Bird Hill.” She was singing dramatically, and that made me think, I want to be a singer.

Jerry Lee Lewis: “Great Balls of Fire”

When I heard this song on the radio in 1958, it just had this visceral effect on me. I had a laughing fit and I couldn’t stop—I started rolling around on the floor. My parents didn’t know what was the matter with me. It just hit me like a lightning bolt, and I was like, “OK, I guess I’m destined to rock and roll.” I had no idea at that age, but kids tore up auditoriums and threw chairs to this song. That’s why parents were like, “Rock and roll is the devil! It’s making kids crazy!” It did make me crazy, in a great way.

Bob Dylan: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

At this point I had my own folk protest band called the Sun Doughnuts, and I played this song for my other bandmates over and over, but they just couldn’t get it. Not only did Dylan’s voice grab me, but the meaning and the message made me realize that the words really matter. A lot of songs, even “Great Balls of Fire,” are kind of funny, but this song, wow—it really affected my life. I became aware of the civil rights movement through music by people like Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell. When I look back at my life, I wonder why I didn’t run away to Greenwich Village and become a folk singer.

Janis Joplin: “Ball and Chain”

This was 1968, and I wanted to look like Mary Travers and Joni Mitchell. I had long straight hair with a part in the middle, while all my classmates had these teased bouffants, which is so ironic now. I transferred to Boston University that year, and that summer, all the hippies moved from San Francisco to the Boston Common. I was like, “Wow, perfect timing.” I got into acid at that time. Of course, I was smoking pot, but LSD was my drug of choice. But it wasn’t like, “Oh, let’s have fun and drop acid!” It was like, “We are expanding our minds. We are going to trip.” So that’s the year I tuned in and turned on—but I didn’t drop out.
I became aware of psychedelic music, but the one singer that really got me was Janis Joplin. I listened to her sing “Ball and Chain” by Big Mama Thornton, and it blew me away. I could never sing like her—I mean, I can’t even try. I don’t know how she did it. She was so unique and seemed to be so free. She epitomized hippiedom, and she seemed like such a strong woman, even though she was singing about a man taking a piece of her heart. She took a piece of my heart, too.
At that time, a group of us stoners were like, “Some music sounds really good when you’re tripping and some sounds good when you’re stoned or when you’re drinking.” I never really got into alcohol, but we drank some really cheap wine and listened to Janis Joplin, and it was like, “That sounds great!” And then we took acid and listened to Janis Joplin—not so good. She wasn’t so psychedelic. She was more of a warm, visceral singer, like red wine flowing through your veins.

David Bowie: “Space Oddity”

I was in the White Panthers, which seems like a joke now, but I was supporting the Black Panthers, holding signs and protesting. After the Kent State shootings, I decided I’d had it with America and went to Europe. I left the summer of ’71 and came back in ’73. While I was there, I met my future ex-husband, Brian Cokayne, who was from Manchester, England. On the way back we went on this major cruise ship that was going one way for $99 in the middle of January. So I go to get on the boat, and who should be getting on right before me: David Bowie. He was dressed to the nines. He had on a really great jacket and these high red leather boots. Some of the crew yelled out “Faggot!” and I was like, “God, that’s David Bowie!” There was a hipster element on the boat, so someone invited what he perceived to be the hipsters to a party, where David Bowie sang “Space Oddity.” It was pretty amazing. It made me realize what an image, what a voice, what individuality he had. It was just like nothing else. It was this new brand of rock and roll that was forming who I wanted to be as a singer. I wish I had gotten to hang out with him, but I was seasick. Everyone was puking all over the place.

Patti Smith: “Horses”

It’s 1978, and this was when we started going back and forth between Athens and New York City. We played CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City, and we were the first band to play the Mudd Club. We weren’t living in New York so we’d go up and stay with friends. We stayed at Brian Eno’s place once, though he was away—I don’t even know if Brian Eno knew we were staying in his apartment. I saw the Ramones and Talking Heads and Blondie. Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were so nice, they took us to their apartment, and we had drinks over there. They were like the Patsy Cline to our Loretta Lynn.
But the artist I saw that just grabbed me was Patti Smith. She did “Horses” and, oh my god, the poetry at the end and the fact that she had this different voice and this gritty look. She was androgynous and tough and she commanded the stage. I’ve seen her perform many times, and she just takes the music by the throat. I don’t know how she has it in her to express such emotion and communicate that to the audience. It’s like a transfiguration—the wine to blood, the body of Christ. She really transforms the whole atmosphere of the room. She’s the shaman of rock and roll.

R.E.M.: “Stand”

I saw R.E.M. at one of their first concerts at this little hole in the wall in Athens, and we’ve been friends and fans of theirs ever since. But by 1988 we intersected again because they had quit their record company and wanted to sign with Warner Bros., which we signed with in 1979. Somehow we were at the Warner Bros. office at the same time, and Michael [Stipe] took me aside and said, “What do you think about them?” I said, “They never really tried to change us or tell us what to do.” That encouraged R.E.M. to sign with them. We were in the studio then, and R.E.M. came in, and we played “Love Shack” for them, and they were like, “This is a hit!”
Later that year, they were working on Green and doing the video for the song “Stand.” They came to Woodstock, and I was just tagging along and helping them location scout. While filming the video, [director] Katherine Dieckmann said, “We’ll just run into this field and try to do this shot really quick before anyone sees us.” And this guy came out with a gun and said, “Get off my land!”

The B-52s: “Revolution Earth”

We toured for a year on 1992’s Good Stuff, and I got a call from my mother to fly home when we were in Europe. She said, “Your father’s dying.” I knew he was sick, but we were on this big tour. I was devastated, of course, but also like, “I’ve got to fly home right away, but we have a show.” I felt so emotional. I sang “Revolution Earth” like my life depended on it—that song never meant so much to me as when I sang it that night. It was so sad but it also gave me this courage. It just felt like everything will be all right, I’ll get home OK and see my father. Thankfully my father lived another couple of weeks, and I got to be with him when he passed away on New Year’s Eve in 1992.

From: https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/the-b-52s-kate-pierson-on-the-music-that-made-her/

XTC - Making Plans for Nigel

"Making Plans for Nigel" is a song by English rock band XTC, released by Virgin Records as the lead single from their 1979 album Drums and Wires. It was written by Colin Moulding, the band's bassist. The lyrics are told from the point of view of overbearing parents who are certain that their son Nigel is "happy in his world", affirming that his future, to be spent working for British Steel, "is as good as sealed", and that he "likes to speak and loves to be spoken to". The single marked XTC's commercial breakthrough. It spent 11 weeks on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at No. 17. In 2016, the song was ranked number 143 on the Pitchfork website's list of the 200 best songs of the 1970s.  It was also ranked number 73 in NME list of 100 best songs of the 1970s.
Bassist Colin Moulding said of the song: I didn't know where it came from. That phrase popped into my head, and one line followed another. Before I knew it, I'd written three parts of the song, and the rest of it just kind of fell in line probably a day or two later. When I was about 16, my father wanted me to stay on in school. But by that time, I really didn't want to do anything other than music, I think. So, in a way, is it autobiographical? Well, a little bit. I knew somebody called Nigel at school. But I think that, when you write songs, it's a lot of things all wrapped up, like in your dreams. Your dreams are kind of bits and pieces of all the walks of life you've been in.
During this time, XTC typically rehearsed about two or three times a week, at which juncture Moulding would introduce his bandmates to whatever new songs he had been working on. He remembered that "Making Plans for Nigel" appeared to receive "a favourable response. But at that time, I didn't really have enough confidence in myself to know where I was going with the arrangement. The other guys helped me on that, I suppose."
In the XTC biography Chalkhills and Children, it is stated that the song's drum pattern was discovered by accident after a miscommunication between guitarist Andy Partridge and drummer Terry Chambers. Partridge said that the drum pattern was actually a deliberate attempt to invert drum tones and accents in the style of Devo's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction". He explained that Moulding introduced the song to the rest of the band on a nylon-string guitar at a slow tempo and did not have an idea of how the arrangement should be fleshed out, "so we said to Colin, 'Do you fancy trying something like Devo for this?" And Colin said, 'Yeah, give it a go.'"
In Chambers' recollection: "Because of the subject matter, I wanted to make the beat a bit more industrial. So instead of keeping the rhythm on the hi-hat, I played it on the floor tom and used the hi-hat for the accents. It was the opposite to what drummers usually do but it gave it a juddering, production-line feel. We used a keyboard to make a smashing sound, like an anvil in a foundry. Partridge said that once the drum pattern was established, the band decided that Moulding should duplicate the tom rhythm on his bass guitar. He continued:
Our second guitarist Dave Gregory began to chop away, doing a much more syncopated version of the basic chords, on electric guitar. Almost snare-drum-like, you know? And I thought, "Well, what the hell am I going to do?" So I locked on to that with this two-note, little oriental pattern. That's really how the whole feel of the song came about, because when Colin brought it up, at about half that tempo, on a nylon-string guitar, it was a case of, "Well, this is a great melody, and great subject matter, but it's going to go nowhere like that.
Among the idiosyncrasies of the song's arrangement is Partridge's high backing vocals. He commented: Literally, as soon as it came up, it was like, 'Jesus, this is annoying! But then again, that might be a good thing. That might click with people, if they find it as irritating as I do!' [laughs] It was just a little 'byoo-doop,' sung in a falsetto. We still loved those high-falsetto, Beach Boys-y answer things. You can hear them all over White Music and Go 2, and it only starts to get out of our system over the next few albums. I still love it."
Virgin Records immediately earmarked "Making Plans for Nigel" as the lead single off XTC's Drums and Wires, although the band did not expect that the single would be successful. Partridge later complained about the amount of time spent recording the song, remarking that "we spent a week doing Nigel and three weeks doing the rest of the album."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Plans_for_Nigel

Marnie Stern - Believing Is Seeing

In the decade since her last LP, New York City lifer Marnie Stern stepped back from her solo career at the edge of math rock to focus on domestic life. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, she was at the forefront of the new millennium’s wave of noisy, kinetic rock acts, showing off a gymnast’s flexibility on a string of high-energy records. In a twist on a day job, Stern has spent much of the last 10 years playing guitar in Seth Meyers’ late-night backing band—a gig more conducive to raising kids than the interminable grind of touring. But, she says, she never lost sight of the guitar as a “blank canvas.”
Stern reclaims her place among the era’s most commanding guitarists on her polished fifth LP, The Comeback Kid, a densely packed showcase of her distinctive style. The latest set is noisy at the core and fuzzy at the edges, heavy on fingertapping and busy melodic displays that snap together elements of punk, grunge, and surf rock. Re-sharpening the rounded edges that shaped much of 2013’s The Chronicles of Marnia, Stern flaunts a reinvigorated spirit in searing songs that live up to the playfully celebratory mood she establishes in the album’s title. In press materials, Stern described making the new LP as an exercise in learning to “start being myself again.” Any time she wondered whether a choice was too strange, she’d remind herself that this was her project: “I’m allowed to do whatever I want!” In that spirit, “Plain Speak” opens the album with bright, bristly, major-key riffs that she tempers with layered vocal harmonies. “I can’t keep on moving backwards,” she barks, standing firm at the center of the song’s dizzying tilt-a-whirl spin.
She leans further into her idiosyncrasies on “Believing Is Seeing,” unleashing a creepy, almost cartoonish cry—“This place is cold! I can’t hear you!”—over icy ostinato guitar before stepping sideways into a series of riff-heavy passages. “What if I add this? And this?” she asks as she heaps layers of guitar onto the mix, playing up the self-referential humor. The churning energy of “The Natural” and the short bursts of “Oh Are They” both channel classic elements of ’80s and ’90s underground rock; her repeated yelps have the feeling of a rallying cry. Like the oaky notes of aged bourbon, the particulars of Stern’s technique have only gotten richer since The Chronicles of Marnia. Her dives feel more dramatic, as when she approaches power-metal poses in “Forward” or shreds up a storm in “Working Memory,” and she reaches piercing vocal highs that land between a ’70s psychedelic shriek and a winged mythical beast. Drummer Jeremy Hara is Stern’s reliable companion throughout, complementing her breakneck fretwork with powerful percussive blasts.
After the gleeful pirouettes of the A-side, the album’s back half becomes more reflective. Even when she pursues a more linear path, Stern moves with surprising intensity. She grapples with the blues in the striving “Get It Good,” and “Earth Eater” fizzes with nervous energy as Stern contemplates lingering pain. The ragged, grungy sound of “Til It’s Over” gives it an even darker cast. Hara’s drumming pushes the song relentlessly forward, as if hitting the gas on a long stretch of open road at night. The Comeback Kid blasts by in under half an hour, and Stern’s impulses to chase her weirdest muses serve her well throughout. She lands her adventurous leaps with breathless energy. Aglow with her triumphant shredding, Stern’s howling return is a neon-haloed song of herself.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/marnie-stern-the-comeback-kid/

The Besnard Lakes - Feuds With Guns

I think that it’s fair to say that, without The Besnard Lakes, this website would not exist. It was 2010 and I was getting to that stage of life when I was beginning to fall back on music from a former time, preferring the ease and safety of nostalgia over the challenge of the new. This was something that many of my peers had already done, Britpop somehow ossifying many of their musical tastes. However, with my wife and very young family unusually out of town, I decided to look through the gig listings for that week and alighted on what looked like an interesting double header of Sleepy Sun and The Besnard Lakes at the tremendous Brudenell Social Club in Leeds.
I had heard of neither band before but a quick listen of their music piqued my interest, and I decided to take the plunge… what followed was, for me, something of a revelation as the music of both bands just washed over me and filled those dehydrated musical pores… I was back and ready to explore new music again, and never really looked back. By the time I saw the bands again, both playing the 2014 Liverpool Psych Fest (The Besnard Lakes on Day 1, and Sleepy Sun on Day 2), fittingly the best couple of days I’ve had with live music, that sort of sealed the deal.
I will admit that I had sort of lost touch with The Besnard Lakes in the meantime and, while playing their first three albums regularly the next two did not really register with me. However, the release of their sixth long player seems to have caused something of a stir and so I decided to give it a listen, and from the off I was absolutely wowed by it. It’s interesting that a number of the reviews of this double album have stressed that this is not a set for the casual listener, that it requires some buy-in to really appreciate it. This for me is the minimum that you should afford an album to really get it, and it is certainly the case that an investment into these four sides of wax – each side of which has its own title: Near Death, Death, After Death and Life – is essential to really begin to understand what it is about.
This, then, is an record with big themes, and with it comes an overall feeling of music that is grand and panoramic - this feels like an album of vision: a grand narrative vision, and a psychedelic vision. This is case from the outset with ‘Blackstrap’ as the band play through an ominously sounding overture before the plaintiff cry of (half-of husband/ wife songwriting duo of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas) Lasek, hits you and gives you the first taste of the pain and mystery of him facing the death of his father - a life event which informs the whole of the this sprawling suite of songs, designed to be listened to in one sitting.
After the intensity of ‘Blackstrap’ there’s a real lightness to ‘Raindrops’, with a melody that is as stunning and it is silky. This beautiful track really reminds me of that first night I saw them back in 2010. It gives me the same feeling of deep joy and discovery - it is one of those tracks that feels simultaneously like it has always existed, and yet is so fresh. It feels to me like a song of hope within the darkness. There are also references to the death of Mark Hollis, a musician who I myself very much mourn here and it is, I will say it again, simply stunning.
The third, and final track, on the ‘Near Death’ side of the vinyl version is ‘Christmas Can Wait’, a deeply affecting meditation on absence and death which, when you focus on the lyrics, is a very moving paean to Lasek’s father, and gave me cause to also think about my own father who died ten years ago. For me this is such a powerful and heartfelt moment in the album, where you really feel the music holding those both playing and listening. After this comes ‘Death’, and the first track ‘Our Heads Our Hearts on Fire Again’; and while this may be a song about death, it ultimately feels like one of hope. The chorus here is so stoic, so joyous, that your cannot help but to feel defiant and emboldened - to feel the strength gained from the experience of tragedy. Again this is intense and yet just so beautiful to listen to - the sort of beauty that can only be hewn from the rock of experience.
’Feuds With Guns’ is a trippy song which, with ‘The Dark Side of Paradise’, provides us with a much more meditative atmosphere through which to think about the ultimate nature of life and death, and consider our place within the great cycle of existence - a thought that might feel somewhat grandiose for many records - but here is just feels right as the music of the latter track sweeps to a fading drone for the last few minutes of the side. That is a good place to pause, if you’re listening on vinyl you have to change the record anyway. but it’s also good to let those first six numbers sink in for a moment before embarking on the second half of the ‘suite’, which comprises of just three tracks, kicking off with ‘New Revolution’- a song of such joyous hope and optimism. You can feel the drive here - the feeling of having steered through the darkness and emerging on the other side to a new dawn.
After that the band play tribute to Prince. Using his original name of Jamie Starr, this is a fitting eulogy to a major musical influence, and, with the mantra of ‘with love there is no death’ another defiant and uplifting moment in which The Besnard Lakes find just the right balance between remembrance and belief - a companion to the Dead Skeletons mantra of “(s)he who fears death cannot enjoy life” on ‘Dead Mantra’. Which then brings us to the title track, an eighteen minute long opus that takes up the whole of the ‘Life’ side of the album. The lyrics seem somewhat bittersweet to me, combining a certain world-weariness with self-consolation - a sense of aloneness (as opposed to loneliness) but also a sense of realism to leave us with, and as the vocal finishes the music does too, abruptly. We are left with a slow and atmospheric drone which gradually pervades your consciousness as you sit with it and think about what you’ve heard. It is a wonderful way to finish the album, giving you a rare chance to just be.
This then, and I’m going to say it again, is an absolutely stunning album by The Besnard Lakes - a career high in my humble opinion, and one in which you can absolutely lose yourself. However this is not some directionless loss but one that is both focused and accessible for those who want to contemplate the profound themes being considered here. It is an album that I am sure I will be playing frequently, and will become part of the cannon of albums that mean an awful lot to me.  From: https://fragmentedflaneur.com/2021/03/05/album-appreciation-the-besnard-lakes-are-the-last-of-the-great-thunderstorm-warnings/comment-page-1/

Earth Tongue - Miraculous Death

Q: How do earthlings so young get into a style of music which is so old?

A: We’re influenced by so many different genres and eras, new and old, but in terms of our playing we’re both drawn to off-kilter time signatures and riffs that catch you off guard. We both come from music loving families, so naturally were brought up on 60s and 70s classic rock, and as we grew up we both went through different musical phases, but that psych/prog sound from the early 70s is what we always go back to. As well as the sound, we really love the artwork and aesthetic associated with that period so that makes it even more appealing.

What was your ‘journey’ of musical taste and discovery?

My journey was pretty typical for a small-town angsty kid from New Zealand. Age 10 I was into Snoop Dog, Nelly, and whatever else was fed to my vulnerable mind by commercial radio. I was also into Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine and Blink 182 at this time, thanks to my cool older brother. I remember watching Woodstock 99 footage on VHS and freaking out at how cool it was. At age 12 I started to learn guitar, and soon discovered Metallica and Pantera, which sent me down the metal spiral. I guess I discovered Queens of the Stone Age around this time too – their first 4 albums were all very important to me, and still are. Around age 14 I discovered Black Flag, Minor Threat, and punk rock in general. I then played in a punk band for years and got pretty deep into that. At 16 a family friend burned a copy of Black Sabbath’s first album onto a CD for me and that’s where my 70s proto-metal and psychedelic period began. Today my taste is really varied. I’m a bit of a crate digger – there’s no better feeling then finding obscure, forgotten psych, kraut and disco gems.

Is being a two piece for reasons of economy or because you just don’t need a third/fourth member?

When you want to play live as a two-piece you really have to get creative with the way you write songs. We both like the way this works. Simple riffs, complex time signatures, interesting melodies – it just works with our style. The financial side of it is a huge bonus too of course. We’re pretty ambitious with touring, and if we had more members this would simply be unachievable.

Do you read a lot of sci-fi fantasy books or graphic novels?

We’re both really into 70s and sci-fi films more than anything. Logan’s Run, Silent Running and Holy Mountain are some of our faves.

Favourite ever movie?

Favourite ever movie is tough! Recently I saw Repo Man and had a really good time! Also Rosemary’s Baby is a must.

Have you watched the classic old sci-fi movie Silent Running? (hope so) if ever there’s a remake you should do the soundtrack.

I seriously didn’t read this question before mentioning it in the answer above! Yes we’ve seen it. And yes we’d love to do the soundtrack but in all honesty, remakes are very rarely good!

What kinda movie would you like to soundtrack?

An animated version of Barberella. Animated by René Laloux.

How far out was I with the Black Sabbath meets Stereolab comparison?

We weren’t actually too familiar with Stereolab when we read your review. But we listened to them and we approve. Being compared to Black Sabbath is always a compliment, so thanks!

Is Primitive Prog a fair descriptor?

We usually go with the descriptor ‘Heavy Psych/Fuzz’ or similar. I feel like we’re not quite virtuosic enough to claim the ‘prog’ title – but we’ll take it! Thanks Ezra.  I picked a few video clips from YouTube to illustrate your  musical journey and influences and it makes a great selection,  Earth Tongue to me seem to be a band following their own path, irrespective of trends or fashion or hipness.  It’s a completely shit comparison but White Stripes conquered the world  so there is no reason Earth Tongue can’t do the same. And I just can’t wait for the animated Barbarella soundtrack! Earth Tongue are not just another girl and boy from another planet.  They are a band who are simply out on their own and out of this world.

From: https://louderthanwar.com/earth-tongue-interview-primitive-prog-rock-band/

Lost Crowns - Sound As Colour

Lost Crowns formed in London in 2018 and released their debut album in 2019. The are part of the Cardiacs related scene in London and are a genuine supergroup made up of members of Stars In Battledress, Knifeworld, North Sea Radio Orchestra, William D Drake band, Prescott, Scritti Politti. The leader of the band and writer of all the material is Richard Larcombe. They play psyche avant wonky pop songs with density, complexity and witticism.
"Lost Crowns assault the mind with the densely detailed songs of Richard Larcombe (Stars In Battledress). There isn't half a lot going on. Complex drum patterns, bass and guitar parts with a lot of notes and hardly any gaps, the keyboards have to play each other at times there's so much to do, with the clarinet, harmonium and voices weaving through the middle like a twisting country road that can't shift an inch left or right in case it strays onto someone else's territory BUT they play it and sing it with the relaxed air of a druggy jam. Will the head leave the body? It will if Lost Crowns have anything to do with it." - Band facebook bio.
"A rich, unfolding master-craftsman's confection, complex, artfully-meandering songs built from delightfully byzantine chords and arpeggios that cycle through ever-evolving patterns like palace clockwork; accompanied by rich, lazy clouds of hilarious, hyper-literate, wonderfully arcane lyrics; all sealed by an arch, out-of-time English manner which (in tone and timbre) falls into a never-was neverworld between Richard Sinclair, Stephen Fry, Noel Coward and a posh, Devonian Frank Zappa." - Misfit City.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=10736